


the boy in wolf's clothing

by Poe



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (and then we come back to be chaotic it's great actually), Derek Hale Takes Care of Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale is a Softie, Derek Hale is okay at feelings actually, Hopeful Ending, I mean not great but okay, I mean there is torture but it's not described and even Stiles thinks it's a bit weak, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, No kissing but feelings are felt!, POV Stiles Stilinski, Pre-Slash, Probable misuse of mountain ash but okay, Protective Derek Hale, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Gets Found, Stiles Gets Taken, Stiles Stilinski is Part of the Pack, Stiles Stilinski is kinda very powerful, Stiles kills some hunters but doesn't find out, Unbetaed we die like Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28848990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poe/pseuds/Poe
Summary: "Stiles isn’t sure how long it’s been. It feels like years, but it’s more realistically hours. They’ve beaten him, made vague attempts at torture, threatened the lives of his friends and family, and now he’s pretty sure he’s sluggishly bleeding out from a gut wound.His vision flickers in and out and he’s pretty sure this is it. There are three, maybe four hunters in the room? He’s having trouble keeping track. His eyes linger on the circle of mountain ash surrounding him, and how carefully the hunters avoid breaking it. If he could just – if one of them could scuff it, even a little, he could do something."*(or the one where Stiles is kidnapped by rogue hunters, and then saves himself, kinda, and then falls in love. It's a long night.)
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 17
Kudos: 235





	the boy in wolf's clothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jesuisgrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesuisgrace/gifts).



> This is for Gracie Grace, who is going to have a tough day today. ily bby. <3

Stiles isn’t sure how long it’s been. It feels like years, but it’s more realistically hours. They’ve beaten him, made vague attempts at torture, threatened the lives of his friends and family, and now he’s pretty sure he’s sluggishly bleeding out from a gut wound.

His vision flickers in and out and he’s pretty sure this is it. There are three, maybe four hunters in the room? He’s having trouble keeping track. His eyes linger on the circle of mountain ash surrounding him, and how carefully the hunters avoid breaking it. If he could just – if one of them could scuff it, even a little, he could do _something_.

Everyone’s getting bored, and nobody seems to be coming for him, and the hunters are beginning to look like they might cut their losses and leave him to die. Which is feeling more and more imminent by the second, if he’s honest, and this isn’t how he wanted to go, but it was on the list of possibilities, it’s not like, a _surprise_.

If he can just get them to break the circle, if he can just loose his spark a little, he can call for help, at least let the others know where to find the body. _The body_. His body. Fuck. He groans a little and struggles to keep his eyes open, eyelids almost unbearably heavy.

He can’t make out words anymore, just tone, and that tone is anxious and bored and getting more heated by the minute. He can’t move his mouth to form words and his tongue just feels kind of numb. He’s finally been shut up. _Took the world long enough_.

Someone steps into his line of vision and that’s when he feels it, the inhale and exhale of his magic pulsing back to life. The ash has been broken. He tips his head back and screams for all he’s worth.

Everything goes dark for a very long time after that.

*

“- _all dead. I’ve never – no, he’s fine. Healing. Stitches, but it wasn’t too deep. No, no hospital. He’s here, he’s safe. I promise. No – no, I don’t think that’d be a good idea. I’ll tell him it was me. After everything, he deserves that. Yeah, I know. I care about him. He’s human. Close enough. Okay. I’ll call you if anything changes. Yeah, you too.”_

*

Stiles comes to slowly, in snatches, not entirely sure that any of this is real, or where he is. The light is dim but he can make out someone sitting at the end of the bed, it looks like they’re trying really hard to pretend to read. He clears his throat, and winces at how much it stings to do so.

“Water, here,” and oh – it’s Derek, Derek pretending to read, and this is Derek’s loft and Derek’s bed. Under any other circumstances this’d be a dream come true, but he’s beaten and bruised and being awake seems like some kind of specifically tailored hate crime, just for him.

Then Derek’s helping him drink from a glass, and Stiles doesn’t miss the way Derek’s finger brushes his and the way the pain dissipates slightly, and normally he’d snap at Derek for doing that without his permission, but right now he needs it, and as Derek slows and shushes him as he tries to gulp down too much water too fast, it feels like he needs this too, and maybe he’s not the only one, because Derek places the glass on the bedside table and sits, close and somehow not close enough, and rests a hand on Stiles’ thigh, rubbing tiny circles through the blanket.

Stiles soaks it up, the comfort, the closeness, all of it, the way he can feel Derek watching him even when he closes his eyes.

He wants to ask questions – the hunters, how they found him, what happens next, but he’s _tired_ , tired in a way he’s never been, and he slips again, the dark welcoming him back.

*

The next time Stiles wakes, things are less fractured, but Derek’s still there, slumped in an uncomfortable looking chair Stiles didn’t even know he had. He’s asleep, and Stiles isn’t sure if he’s ever seen Derek asleep before without him being gravely injured or actively dying. He has really long eyelashes, Stiles notices, and they flutter as he dreams.

Stiles watches him for a while, longer than he probably should, but this feels like something sacred, something he won’t get to do again, so he allows himself it. He stretches a little, careful not to make any noise, and he aches, and there must be stitches in his stomach because they pull and make him wince, but he’s healing. His magic is gathering him up and protecting him.

He feels like a well that has been near emptied, but that doesn’t mean he’s useless. Just that he needs to wait for the rain again.

Derek snuffles unattractively and jolts awake, looking around wildly before his eyes settle on Stiles and he relaxes. He tilts his head a little, and kind of smiles, which is nice. It’s nice, because he’s here and he saved Stiles somehow and it makes Stiles a little loopy to think about it all.

“Hi,” Stiles says, and it’s more like a croak. Derek is quick to pass him the glass of water again, and this time Stiles can hold it himself, and he takes small sips that ease his throat. He remembers screaming, then nothing else.

When he’s done, Derek takes the glass again and holds it for a few seconds, tapping his fingers against it, before putting it down.

“What do you remember?” He asks, and Stiles doesn’t know, not really.

“Mountain ash, I don’t know, I think they stabbed me? And all I could think was, _wow, this is actually it, isn’t it_? And I remember screaming. And then – it felt like I was exploding. And I woke up here,” Stiles says, before shrugging.

Derek shifts, and bites his lip, looks away, before looking right at Stiles, and Stiles wonders if he’s become see through because he feels naked in a way he couldn’t be even if he was undressed.

“You were in my head. In all our heads. Your scream. Like a beacon. It was – power. Raw, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I knew where you were. I could see it. We found you. Stiles, we found you.”

“The hunters – ” Stiles begins, but Derek shakes his head.

“Dead. I – lost control. Seeing you like that. What they’d done to you. It’s okay. They were rogues, they didn’t follow the code. Nobody’s going to miss them.”

Stiles can’t hear the tic of Derek’s lie, Stiles doesn’t _need to know_. Derek grits his teeth together and calms himself.

“It’s okay,” Stiles says. It looks like Derek needs to hear that. “ _I’m_ okay.”

“You nearly weren’t,” Derek admits. Doesn’t admit _I was scared_ , but Stiles reads it on his face anyway.

“Silly werewolf, you know it’s going to take more than that. You’ve been worrying about me, huh? When did you start doing that?”

Derek looks away and Stiles wonders if maybe Derek feels as transparent as he does. This feels a liminal space, a place between worlds, where truths are told that can’t be put back in boxes.

“You were never scared of me, not properly,” Derek says, and looks back at Stiles, but only just. “You never – you should have been more scared than you were. And then it was like you stopped being scared of me at all. And I realised you must have no self-preservation at all. So maybe I started to worry.”

Stiles struggles to sit up, and Derek leans over to help him, pushing the pillow up behind him.

“Maybe you’re just not that scary. Sure, with the eyebrows and the leather jacket, but that’s not real, is it? So you can grow fangs and your eyes go all red and that’s all very impressive, but you know what that makes me feel?” Stiles pauses, and worries his bottom lip a little before continuing. “It makes me feel _safe_. Because all of that, it’s to keep me safe, to keep the pack safe. It’s just you. A weird, growly part of you, but it’s still you. And I can’t be scared of you.”

“No self-preservation,” Derek repeats.

“And yet here I am. In your bed, no less. What does that say?” Stiles asks, and smiles with it, because Derek looks so confused with it, and maybe they’re on the same page, but they’re not reading the same paragraph, not yet.

“What do you want it to say?” Derek asks, voice low, careful.

“I think it says it shouldn’t have taken me nearly dying for you to get me into your bed. It wouldn’t have. If you’d’ve asked. Which you should have done. I’ve been all in. Since day one. God, Derek, since day fucking one.” Stiles leans back and closes his eyes, thinking back. He’d been young, Derek had been young, and the world had shifted in a way Stiles hadn’t thought it could. And then the dominos had begun to fall, and here he was.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” Derek says, honest, and he looks younger, impossibly young, and Stiles’ heart aches for him.

“Come here,” Stiles says, because it can be easy, just this once. God, let it be easy. “Hold me. Just hold me. Just until I fall asleep again.”

Derek looks for the longest time like he won’t move, but then the chair scrapes back and he’s walking to the other side of the bed, and pulling back the blankets. He lays down like he’s never done it before, all awkward jerky movements, and Stiles can’t quite reach for him, but it’s okay, because Derek finds him, careful of Stiles’ stitches, and noses into the crook of Stiles’ neck, stubble tickling slightly against the delicate skin there.

“We’ll talk about this,” Derek mumbles against Stiles’ throat, “we need to.”

“We’ve got time,” Stiles says, and yawns. He shuffles himself down and presses against Derek as much as he can. “We’ve got so much time.”

“Boy in wolf’s clothing,” Derek murmurs, and it sounds like he doesn’t mean to say it aloud.

That’s it though, isn’t it? And it’s how it was always going to be. _And_ , Stiles thinks, he wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.

He sleeps, and he wakes, and Derek is still there, and Stiles feels lucky. Because this is a beginning. And beginnings mean anything could happen.

This could be a love story.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay yes, so using mountain ash to contain Stiles' spark probably wouldn't work given canon, but consider this: maybe the more powerful you get, the more of a negative response you have to things you used to be able to control. Look, I'm trying here, we're all just trying.
> 
> So yeah, when Stiles screamed his spark killed the hunters, but Derek is going to go to his grave never telling Stiles that. I haven't watched 3b yet but I imagine Stiles has enough to feel guilty about without some hunters too. If you want to chalk this up to Derek's martyr complex or just protectiveness, either is good!
> 
> Shout out to Jay who will never read this but let me ramble about writing it nonetheless.
> 
> Shout out to Grace (eusuntgratie.tumblr.com) who could do with your well wishes today. Go send her some love (or some truly filthy Sterek headcanons, she's an either/or sorta person).
> 
> You can find me at jbbarnes.tumblr.com where it's either Teen Wolf, Bucky Barnes, The Witcher or a weird amount of Hannibal, all day every day.
> 
> And comments light up my life, as do kudos, so feel free to do that! No comment is too silly. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. <3


End file.
